# Nail Polish Restoration: How to fix your dried up, thick & unuseable polish



## Christa W (Oct 8, 2013)

Nail Polish Restoration Guide:

Nail polish doesn't have to be thrown away once it becomes thick or even after it's been dried out.  Yesterday I restored one of my favorite polishes and I wanted to share the process and offer tips to anyone interested in saving your pretties.  The restorative process can be as simple as adding a few drops of a thinner to the more complex process which I will show you.  There are so many incredible products out there you can almost fix any nail polish issue.

I didn't take a picture of this just as I was getting ready to fix it so I apologize but this is my favorite pink glitter polish.  I purchased it from Hot Topic on clearance for .50 back in 2007 and some point along the way the cap became cracked.  I tried to superglue then electrical tape but it still dried out.  At one point about 6 months ago I was able to thin it down enough to take a swatch on my color wheel but it soon became hard as a rock.  I remember how I had bought a few sets of Color Club polishes and they always come with a clear coat that I don't typically use so I dug it out and decided to fix this polish.  When I removed the cap the brush end actually broke off and remained cemented in the polish.  I wish I had done this sooner but I didn't have a bottle at the time to transfer it to. 

This polish was about 3/4 full in the round, tall bottle and thankfully it had a wider mouth opening.  I added a considerable amount of thinner to start to see what I could shake loose.  Since I didn't have a cap I had to hand mix everything using an orange stick.  I poured about 3/4 of the bottle of clear coat base out of the bottle and into another bottle I had so I would have room to add my Hot Topic polish in.  After mixing the thinner around for a few minutes I poured it out into a small glass dish.  There wasn't much more than pink pigment and a few glitters in it.  I then took the polish I had removed from the Color Club bottle and poured about another 1/4 into my Hot Topic bottle.  I used a syringe and put some of my thinner back in.  I suppose I could have put the clear polish into my glitter rock first then added the thinner that way I wouldn't have had to pour any out but the best part was this was a learning experience as well so next time I might add equal parts.  I then took my orange stick and began chipping away at the sides of the bottle loosening any chunky glitters.  I repeated this process until I could get the consistency of regular polish.  My biggest hurdle became that the brush finally loosened enough and all of the bristles broke off and were floating around in the polish.  About half my time was spent fishing them out.

After I would loosen a good portion  I would poor it back into the Color Club bottle then get more of the clear polish and thinner and repeat until I had the whole thing filled.  It got very dry on me as the process went on and since I had removed the brush from the Color Club clear bottle it hardened as well.  Fortunately I have a fix for that too.  In the end after about an hour of mixing and swirling I got my polish moved to a new bottle good as new.  Actually better than it had been in a long time.  More of the iridescent shimmer seem to be showing.  

So here are my tips for fixing polishes.

*1.* Use nail polish thinner or restore to thin out your thickened polishes.  Add drops as necessary.  _*Never, ever*_ use nail polish remove to thin it out even if it gives you the result you think you want you are damaging the formula of the polish.  Thinners will add back the chemicals removed when they evaporate.  That's my short explanation. 

*2. *You can fix glitters the same way but I find they never really act the same even with thinner.  I found a product I swear by for those.  Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food.  You can either add it to glitters that are getting thick or if you find you have your glitters separating you can just remove the excess polish and replace it with Glitter Food.  I have an example of that below.  It sells for around $8.00 plus shipping on Etsy.  Aside from actually purchasing suspension base and adding that to your glitters, this is a great alternative.  It is used for a top coat to smooth out glitters also but just to give you and idea, I used mine to fix 6 very bad glitters and used it in 2 manicures and I am not even 1/3 empty yet so it's not like you use the whole bottle fixing one polish.  I just added a few drops in each of mine.

Always make sure you clean the rim of your bottles especially with glitters to prevent them from drying out.  I have had some polishes for 20+ years and they work as well as any I have that are brand new.  Taking care to maintain them with ensure they out live you.  I have some in this collection that you can't get anymore and I don't want to take the chance that I will have to throw them away.  This hobby of mine is just as much about the collecting and the wearing.  I have now around 700 bottles, that's a lot of money invested in this and I would hate to have to repurchase something I didn't have to. 

I hope this helps anyone who had an interest in it.  Save the pretties!









Here is the pink polish I was talking about.  This is the bottle after I had been working on it.  When I started it was completely dried up. 







This heart glitter was a big clump of hearts that I could never get to.  I would only ever get the clear glitter and maybe some red glitters.  The snow globe glitter was so bad I finally got it so it was useable but would separate daily, this is after a week.







Bought this China Glaze on clearance at Sally but it was all messed up.  I removed the excess clear and replaced with the Glitter Food and it's still perfect as in pic 2


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## Christa W (Oct 8, 2013)

I knew I forgot something... the brush.  So to fix a dried up brush you can't get to spread just put a little thinner in a dish and put the brush in it.  Swirl around until the brush fans out.  Then you can put it back in your polish.  It may take a few minutes.  With the example above it took me going back and forth essentially "painting" the bottom of the dish for a bit until I fanned out.  (Also I got these glass dishes 4 pk for $1.00 at Dollar Tree.  They come in handy!)

Here it is demonstrated using my Hit Polish Key Lime Pie.  This brush is crooked just because so I don't have an after shot but it did help it some and this was the closest polish to me at the time because I was trying to fix that brush!


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